Three
Qantas
Airways unions have banded together to ask the federal government to help keep some of the airline’s engineering operations in Australia, possibly through subsidies.

Presenting a plan to the company yesterday, the Australian Workers Union, Australian Manufacturing Workers Union and the Electrical Trades Union said they wanted Qantas to keep its three maintenance plants operating.

AWU Victorian secretary Cesar Melhem said the alliance would lobby the government to put pressure on the airline.

“The main responsibility for investment has to rest with Qantas," he said. “There is a core obligation from a company who ‘still calls Australia home’ to maintain its servicing in Australia. Now if that requires some assistance from the state and federal governments to make that continue, this is in the strategic interest of the nation to maintain a national carrier."

The unions want the heavy maintenance of the A380 and B787 fleet to be carried out in Australia. Some industry experts say the work can be done more cheaply overseas.

“If we don’t make a plan now, we might end up with no heavy maintenance industry in five to 10 years’ time," Mr Melhem said.

In February, Qantas said it would review its three maintenance facilities in Avalon and Tullamarine, in Victoria, and Brisbane and look at consolidating the services into one plant. A 60-day consultation period with workers will end in mid-April and a decision is expected by April 30.

Qantas group executive of operations
Lyell Strambi
said the company needed to consolidate the three facilities and the review was aimed at improving the efficiency of maintenance work in Australia and was not about sending work offshore.

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“At the conclusion of this consultation process in April, Qantas will determine where the work will be conducted in Australia," he said.

Engineer Scott Kecorius told The Australian Financial Review the support from workers for the union plan was “pretty much unanimous".

He said that Qantas should try to carry out maintenance for other airlines in the Asian region.

Mr Kecourius said there was a “good deal of angst" among employees at the Tullamarine facility as many did not know what the company’s plan was.

“We tend to get it [the news] in one sudden drop, like we got from [chief executive]
Alan Joyce
the other week that they’re looking at closing one or two of the maintenance bases. It makes it very hard for the guys."

AMWU national secretary
Glenn Thompson
said that despite the fact that a new workplace agreement had to be negotiated at the end of the year for some of the workers, the union alliance planned to “engage the company now". It wants Qantas to pledge to keep 90 per cent of heavy maintenance in Australia.

Mr Strambi said the unions were incorrect to claim that all of the challenges facing Qantas’s engineering operations would be solved by maintaining A380s in Australia.

Victorian Manufacturing Minister
Richard Dalla-Riva
said the government had been in talks with Qantas. He declined to say if it would hand the company money to keep the plants operating.

The federal government declined to comment on whether it would provide funding to the company to help secure the future of the plants.